Language Use in Family, Community and Work Domains:

The Euromosaic Gaelic Survey 1994/95 – Scotland, Western Isles and Skye

Kenneth MacKinnon, Survey Organiser

The Euromosaic Gaelic Survey

In 1994 the Euromosaic Project commissioned the present author to organise a language use and attitudes survey of Gaelic speakers throughout Scotland as one of eight lesser-used languages surveys to be undertaken in the European Union. The Euromosaic Project was organised by a team, Equip Euromosaic, headed by Miquel Strubell then of the Direccio General de Politica Linguistica, Barcelona, and including Glyn Williams, Director of Research Centre Wales, at the University of Wales Bangor, who co-ordinated surveys of the Celtic language-groups. Correspondents also reported on 48 cases of indigenous lesser-used language groups in European Union member-states. (Nelde, et al., 1996) The present author also undertook the language-group report on Gaelic. (MacKinnon, 1994a) Funding was forthcoming from the Commission of European Communities Task Force Resources Humaines.

The Gaelic survey comprised the first national language-use survey of Gaelic speakers throughout Scotland. A national sample of 322 Gaelic speakers was interviewed, quotaed in terms of place of residence, age, gender and occupational class. A Western Isles subset of 130, a Western Isles and Skye subset of 156, and a Mainland Scotland subset of 166 have been separately analysed.

Some results of this have already been published, relating to family, intergenerational and community language use. (Jenniges, 1995; MacKinnon 1997, 1998) A report on Identity, Attitudes and Support for Gaelic Policies is also available. (MacKinnon, 2000) The present paper presents data on the extent of reported use of Gaelic and English for speech-situations in family life extending from subjects to parents and grandparents, between subjects and their children, and between the children themselves. (Tables / Figures 1 – 5) Analysis is also presented regarding use of the two languages in work domains (Tables / Figures 10a, b), and in the domains of everyday life within the community. (Tables / Figures 7 – 9.)

The similarity of questions between the Euromosaic survey and the author’s surveys in the Western Isles and Isle of Skye (almost a decade earlier in 1986/88) enables some comparisons to be made. These are presented in Tables / Figures 5 –7).

Language Use in the Family

It is quite clear from the data presented in Tables / Figures 1 – 5 concerning family language use, just how sharp has been the decline in use of Gaelic inter-generationally over the four generations from grandparent, through parent, subject, to and between children. Bearing in mind that the survey subjects spanned the whole adult age-range from 16 years, there is scope for further analysis here. Even so, the strength of maintenance by all subjects of Gaelic usage with grandparents, and the noticeably weaker usage of Gaelic amongst children generally is indicative of rapid and substantial Gaelic language-loss.

The situation is much the same whether the Gaelic heartland areas of the Western Isles and Skye are considered or Gaelic speakers are taken in Scotland as a whole. Gaelic usage in the family is marginally weaker taking Scotland as a whole, indicating that Gaelic is not so well maintained outwith the traditional Gaelic area. In Table / Figure 3 relating to eight selected speech-situations in the family domain, Mainland Scotland is specifically compared with the Western Isles and Skye subset. Some differences are apparent, very much in line with expectation: Gaelic is better maintained in its heartland than in a mainland – largely lowland and urban – context.

Within the predominantly Gaelic-speaking area, the issue of inter-generational transmission is crucial if there is to be any realistic prospects of a continuing Gaelic community. An earlier survey had looked at this problem, at a time when both the Western Isles and Skye were areas where Gaelic was the majority speech of the community throughout. The results of this Language Maintenance and Viabilty Project have been separately reported (MacKinnon, 1988, 1994b). The survey comprised 261 subjects selected systematically from electoral rolls. Although not strictly comparable, the results for all subjects, Gaelic speakers and Gaelic-speaking parents are presented for interest and broad comparison with the Euromosaic Western Isles and Skye subset less than a decade later. Rapid weakening of inter-generational transmission processes is suggested. (Table / Figure 4 a-c)

The comparison is further made in Table / Figure 5 between the 224 Gaelic speakers in the Western Isles and Skye in the 1986/88 survey, and the 130 in the 1994/95 survey. Decline in reported usage of Gaelic is marked for each generation, increasing sequentially from the grandparents’ to the children’s generation.

Language Use within Community Speech-situations

The reported extent of use of Gaelic and English of Gaelic-speaking respondents in these two surveys is illustrated in Tabular Figures 6 and 7.

The 1994/95 Euromosaic results indicate some continuing strengths for Gaelic in such fields as religious life, with neighbours and for shopping locally. Local councillors in these Gaelic areas were still generally Gaelic-speaking, and thus enabled this domain to remain strongly Gaelic. Gaelic usage fell away rapidly with exchanges with professionals and public service providers, indicating the lack of policies to enable these services to be effectively delivered bilingually. A similar pattern is apparent in the 1986/88 survey – although differing methodologies mean that strict comparison is not possible.

The 1994/95 Euromosaic survey examined language use in situations of Gaelic cultural infrastructure. These proved not to be so predominantly Gaelic as might have been expected. In the way the questions were asked this was more by way of extent of uptake rather than language use within the speech-situation as such.

Change in speechways over the respondent’s lifetime is shown in Table / Figure 9 for four community domains of use: in streets, shops, church and clubs. Within the most strongly Gaelic-speaking community of the Western Isles, Gaelic is best maintained in speech exchanges in ‘the street’, and slippage most apparent in the leisure/entertainment domain ‘in clubs’. Use of Gaelic in shopping and in church are quite strong and very comparable with each other. Elsewhere in Scotland language change has of course been more considerable, but the best domain for Gaelic maintenance has been the church.

Gaelic within the Domain of Work

In the 1986/88 survey croft work showed up as a particularly strong speech-situation for Gaelic, as shown in tabular Figure 6. The Euromosaic Project used a common questionnaire throughout its eight language surveys so there was no question on crofting as such. There were however more penetrative questions relating to language used at work generally. As would be expected, Gaelic usage at work was weaker amongst Gaelic-speaking respondents in mainland Scotland than in the Western Isles and Skye. However, within the majority Gaelic-speaking area of the Western Isles and Skye, use of Gaelic at work was not all that substantially stronger – even when it might be supposed that the majority of subordinate staff and customers were likely to be Gaelic speaking.

In comparison Gaelic used at work in mainland Scotland seems stronger than might be readily anticipated. This might result from the methodology whereby respondents were identified by Gaelic-speaking interviewers quotaing from their own acquaintanceship and by networking Gaelic speakers at work (and elsewhere) who knew one another. Although this methodology was opportunistic, the results may be indicating the intrusive penetration of English through work domains in the strongly Gaelic areas, and the conscious maintenance of Gaelic networks in urban and lowland contexts.

References

Jenniges, R., (1995) Feeling at Home in Your Language, Brussels: European Bureau for Lesser Used Languages. (pp. 33 – 34)

Nelde, P., Strubell, M., and Williams, G., (1996) Euromosaic – the production and reproduction of the minority language groups in the European Union, Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities.

MacKinnon, K., (1994a) Gaelic in 1994 – Report to EU Euromosaic Project, Barcelona / Research Centre Wales, Bangor.

MacKinnon, K., (1994b) ‘Gaelic Language-Use in the Western Isles’, in Fenton A., and MacDonald, D. A. (eds.) (1994) Studies in Scots and Gaelic: Proceedings of the Third International Conference on the Languages of Scotland, Edinburgh 25-27th. July 1991, Edinburgh: Canongate (pp. 123 – 137)

MacKinnon, K., (1997) ‘Gaelic in Family and Community: Western Isles 1986/88 – 1994/95 from Survey and Census Data’, paper to Fifth International Conference on the Languages of Scotland and Ulster, University of Aberdeen 1 – 5th August 1997. (Forthcoming in Proceedings)

MacKinnon, K. (1998) ‘Language-Use and Viability in Contemporary Gaelic-speaking Communities: Skye and the Western Isles Today’, in Ureland, P. S., and Broderick, G. (ed.s) (1998) Language Contact in the British Isles, Tubingen: Niemeier. (pp. 495 – 534)

MacKinnon, K. (2000) ‘Identity, Attitudes and Support for Gaelic Policies: Gaelic Speakers in the Euromosaic Survey 1994/95’, paper to the Sixth International Conference on the Languages of Scotland and Ulster, The Queen’s University of Belfast, 9 - 13th August 2000.

Acknowledgements

Economic and Social Research Council for Major Award GOO 23 23 28 Language Maintenance and Viability in Gaelic Communities 1985-1988, and Hatfield Polytechnic / University of Hertfordshire for research support and computing facilities.

EU Euromosaic Project and EU Task Force Resources Humaines for financial support, and Research Centre Wales and University of Wales, Bangor for computing facilities.

Wayne Diamond, Social Sciences University of Hertfordshire, for computer graphics.

Inverness College for reprographic assistance.

Affiliation

Kenneth MacKinnon is Visiting Professor and Emeritus Reader in the Sociology of Language at the University of Hertfordshire. He is also Honorary Research Fellow in Celtic at the University of Edinburgh, and an Associate Lecturer of the Open University in Education and Social Sciences.